E-card site with a reduplicative name / FRI 3-27-26 / Reductive neologism for a strong female lead / Epithet for Bill Clinton / George's computer friend on "The Jetsons" / PB&J, e.g., informally / Dish whose name means "barley" in Italian / Direction in many a spaghetti western / Figure in Greek mythology who was brought up by a bear / Like 97% of the United States, per the Census Bureau / Dwarf planet in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter / Affliction known as "cold neuralgia" / Tahoe runner

Constructor: Zachary David Levy

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: R.U.D.I. (53D: George's computer friend on "The Jetsons") —

R.U.D.I. (voiced by Don Messick) is George's work computer as well as his best friend in the workplace. R.U.D.I. is sentient, free thinking and openly fond of George, recognizing his value as an employee and friend. His name is an acronym for Referential Universal Digital Indexer. He has a human personality and is a member of the Society Preventing Cruelty to Humans. Though capable and loyal, R.U.D.I. is implied to be antiquated technology, as George mentions his model is no longer made.

In the episode "Family Fallout", the Jetsons are up against the Spacelys on a game show. The last question to come up was "what does R.U.D.I. stand for?" George's response was Referential Universal Differential Indexer – this was accepted by the game show host as the correct answer, even though earlier episodes had it as Digital instead of Differential. (wikipedia)

• • •

I think it's best if I just rate this three stars and call its difficulty "Medium" because I am in no condition to make clear-headed judgments. I'm about 18 hours out from my second shingles shot and I feel pretty terrible. Low-level flu-ish. I did not enjoy solving this puzzle very much, but it seems more than possible that my mild feverishness, poor sleep, and resulting brain fog had something to do with that. So I'll try to keep it mostly just descriptive today ... though there is some stuff I'm pretty sure I'd've disliked even if I were feeling 100%. Things I'd rather never think about like BUBBA and TSA and anthropomorphized computer "friends"—and obscure ones, at that—the idea that anyone in the year 2026 should be familiar with the Jetsons universe to that extent is an absurdity. I thought the clue at 53D: George's computer friend on "The Jetsons" (R.U.D.I.) was talking about their robot maid, ROSIE, and the fact that I know ROSIE is itself a minor miracle considering that show aired before I was born—well, the first season, anyway; there were later seasons (2) when I was a teenager (1985-87), but I was not aware of them. R.U.D.I. was the worst of the proper nouns, for me, but I definitely resented having to know JIB-JAB (I have never visited an "E-card site" in my life and am never going to—people still "send" these impersonal things??) (1D: E-card site with a reduplicative name). NFL coaches, esp. their first names, there's just no way. I do not care. [Some guy's first name] may as well have been the clue for DAN (56D: N.F.L. coach Quinn). The clue doesn't even tell you the team he coaches. It's a really underwritten clue; we don't even learn any potentially interesting trivia. Meh. 

I had trouble getting started with this one, and then some trouble down below (where so many of the proper nouns are), and otherwise not much trouble at all. Worked my way into the NW corner via FEN / OFFS / SANYO / STENO (crosswordese to the rescue!), but I doubted FEN because it gave me what seemed like awkward letter sequences ("EF" "NF"). And so I put BOG in that position for a bit (resulting in "OF" instead of "EF" in 15-Across ... "OF" is of course a standalone word, so I was like "that's probably it, it's probably BOG / ...OF..." No). The clue on RURAL took me every single cross (7D: Like 97% of the United States, per the Census Bureau)—like, I was looking at -URAL going "... AURAL?" The clue is talking about the U.S. as a geographical entity; when you put "Census Bureau" in the clue, I assume you are talking about people. Yeesh. Saying the U.S. is 97% rural sounds like some right-wing propaganda, like when they show you how much of the country voted "red" using a physical map instead of numbers of people (when land, of course, doesn't vote; people do). So bah to that clue for sure. I wrote in FARO (!?) before ORZO at 10D: Dish whose name means "barley" in Italian, which was dumb—I think it's FARRO with two "R"s, anyway. But after a lot of flailing, I got that corner sorted and ... moved on.

Why am I still writing? I need to go be on the couch with a mug of hot water watching old movies until I pass out. I'll end by saying I think the stack in the NW corner is great, and THATAWAY made me smile (maybe I'll watch an old western today...) (33D: Direction in many a spaghetti western). I do not believe in the phrase "ALL OK?" (22A: "Do we have a problem here?"). Like, at all. Cannot hear it. "YOU OK?" I can def hear. "ALL GOOD?" I can kinda hear. "EVERYTHING OK?," sure. "ALL OK?," no. No. The one other answer that made me shake my head impatiently was ARGUED A CASE, which is as paradigmatic an EAT A SANDWICH answer as you're ever going to see ... but then I laughed out loud when that answer actually crossed SAMMICH (!), so maybe the puzzle is doing some kind of meta performance art there. Points for making it weird, puzzle.

Bullets:

• 24A: L.A. subdivision? (LOS) — self-referential. The clue is referring to "L.A." One "subdivision" is LOS, the other is ANGELES. 
• 13D: Reductive neologism for a strong female lead (GIRL BOSS) — oof. This concept. The clue seems to know that it's "reductive" so why is it in the grid at all? GIRL BOSS feminism reinforces gender stereotypes and perpetuates a toxic hustle culture, ugh. The very idea that it's remarkable for a "girl" to be a "boss" is also ... I dunno. A problem, I'd say. Many feminists have written articles critiquing the #GirlBoss phenomenon in the 15 or so years since it first blew up. But the critique isn't only coming from feminists: "In our pursuit of progress and equality, it's vital to understand that the core of our conversations should transcend gendered limitations. The goal isn’t to shift from one catchy hashtag to another, but to reframe our collective mindset, ensuring that aspirations and trends truly represent and resonate with all" (that's Forbes for god's sake). 
• 40D: PB&J, e.g., informally (SAMMICH) — me: "so PB&J ... is formal now?" Also me: "... SAMMIES?" (I hear sandwiches called "sammies" way more often than I hear them called "SAMMICHes").
• 23D: "Squid Game" and "The Red Sleeve" for two (K-DRAMAS) — these are just Korean dramas. Pretty straightforward.
• 29A: One whose work is barely seen? (EROTIC ARTIST)—not really sure what this is. Is it a stripper? A painter? Cartoonist? I got the EROTIC part easily enough, but the ARTIST was less intuitive.

• 14D: Figure in Greek mythology who was brought up by a bear (ATALANTA) — I know her name because it appears in a Donne poem ("Elegy XIX: To His Mistress Going to Bed"), but otherwise, I honestly know very little about her. She was a "swift-footed huntress" who as a child had been left to die by her father but was "suckled by a she-bear," as was the style of the time. She offered to marry whoever could beat her in a foot race and so Hippomenes got some golden apples from Aphrodite and threw them on the ground, and ATALANTA stopped mid-race to pick them up, and so Hippomenes won the race. "Atalanta and her husband, overcome with passion, made love in a shrine of the goddess Cybele (or of Zeus), for which they were turned into lions" (Britannica). So she had a colorful life.

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Literally, "rumbling ghost" / THU 3-26-26 / It's found in a Nook / Mushroom sold in clusters / British actor and broadcaster Stephen / One inside the Trojan horse

Constructor: Alex Murphy

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: FLIP THE BIRD (58A: Make a rude gesture ... or a hint to answering 17-, 23-, 33- and 50-Across) — shaded squares in theme answers contain names of birds; those squares must be "flipped" in order to make sense of the relevant clues:

Theme answers:

• POLEGRETIST  (i.e. poltergeist) (17A: Literally, "rumbling ghost")
• FALLCRANEHES (i.e. fallen arches) (23A: Flat feet)
• GOLDETERNRIEVER (i.e. golden retriever) (33A: Pet renowned for its agreeableness)
• MARHAWKLBERG (i.e. Mark Wahlberg) (50A: "The Departed" actor)

Word of the Day: RENEE Rapp (63A: Actress Rapp of "Mean Girls") —

Reneé Jane Rapp (born January 10, 2000) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. She gained recognition for starring as Regina George in the Broadway musical Mean Girls (2019–2020). She reprised the role in the 2024 musical film adaptation and also contributed to its soundtrack. Rapp has also acted in the HBO Max comedy series The Sex Lives of College Girls (2021–2024). She released her debut EP, Everything to Everyone, in 2022, which was followed by her full-length studio album, Snow Angel, in 2023. Rapp's second album, Bite Me, was released on August 1, 2025. (wikipedia)

• • •

I think I dislike this puzzle as much as I do in part because I love birds. "It's a bird puzzle!" If someone had told me that before I'd started, well ... a. I'd be like "spoiler alert!" but also b. I'd think "sounds amazing." Just yesterday I (finally) set up my Merlin (bird identification) account and started an official bird "life list." I use the app all the time to identify birds by their song, but I had resisted going "full birder" and starting a damn life list; and yet ... apparently something kicks in when you are deep into middle age and so yesterday, I fully succumbed. First "life list" bird—the bird that inspired me to finally start the damned list—a common raven (actually uncommon in my neck of the woods this early in spring) (note: I did not see it in a neck or any other part of the woods, but on top of the tallest building on campus, yelling its heart out—I think I saw its friend fly away moments earlier). Anyway, one thing COVID shut-down gave me was birds (the other is cocktails—would also expect to love a cocktail-themed puzzle, tbh). So, yes, birds, more please. Only ... where to start? The birds give me grid gibberish, for starters. I get that the whole point is that if I "flip" them then I won't have gibberish anymore, only in the actual grid as I'm actually solving I do actually have gibberish, which is unpleasant both to solve and to look at. A great puzzle could overcome this aesthetic deficit, but ... such greatness was not forthcoming.

Look, I have been known to swear. I swear. I do. I try to keep it down, esp. outside the home, but ... well, I'm pretty sure I said "f*ck" in class just yesterday (I was talking about John Donne, whaddyagonna do, the guy likes to f*ck, or at least the narrator of "The Flea" does). So I'm not prudish when it comes to bad words. And yet a "rude gesture," esp. this rude gesture, as my revealer!? That was an unpleasant surprise. Imagine you're waiting on the revealer to see how it's going to make sense of the theme, and you finally get there, and the puzzle flips you off? (which is what I would call it, btw; FLIP THE BIRD always sounded cornily euphemistic to me). There was something really off-putting about it. But somewhere between my figuring out the "bird" part of the puzzle and the puzzle flipping me off, that's where things really GET UGLY, because the fill on this ... was probably actually more off-putting than the middle finger awaiting me at the end. Which is to say I was really primed to hate that revealer, because the puzzle had already been giving me garbage. 

It's been a while since I endured anything as awful as the triple-"E" combination of ECIG, EINK, and EBATES. When I (finally) got EBATES, it's possible that I actually said "f*ck you*, so maybe the puzzle was within its rights to flip me off, I don't know. I just know that ECIG is a wince (37D: Vape pen), but a regular wince, a normal wince; EINK is an abomination (36D: It's found in a Nook), and EBATES is smushed and rotting somewhere underneath EINK (47D: Some online discounts). If any two of those had appeared in the grid together, I'd've been furious. EINK alone is nearly unbearable. EINK plus ECIG plus EBATES? A plate full of vomit. I do not understand caring that little about the basic surface-level appearance of your grid. Throw in a bunch of short gunk and the awful ASEASY, as well as a weird fascination with social outcasts (LEPER, PARIAH) and a bizarre cluster of proper nouns, including the unnecessary proper nounification of FRY, and I'm left just shaking my head. And as I was shaking my head, as I finally got to the end, the puzzle decided to flip me the bird. At that point, the "rude gesture" felt on-brand. Disappointing, but in keeping w/ the grid's personality. (You're probably thinking, "you know, there are actually four E-words in this puzzle—you forgot about ‘EMAIL ME,’” to which I say "why are you like this? Just let me move on!")

There were a few sticking points today, but not many. I was saved by ENOKI (crosswordese can be your friend!) in the north after I gummed things up with MANIA instead of ANTIC (7D: Zany behavior). That answer goes through the shaded squares in the first themer, and at that point I had no idea why the letters in there were rearranged the way they were, so things got stickier than they might have otherwise. Beyond that, all my trouble was in the FRY / RENEE / EBATES part of the puzzle (i.e. the south). No idea who RENEE Rapp is (perhaps because I never saw any of the newer incarnations of Mean Girls and also because RENEE Rapp hasn't been on the planet that long—she's my daughter's age). Also, instinctively wrote in Stephen REA at 58D: British actor and broadcaster Stephen (FRY). Live by the crosswordese, die by the crosswordese, I guess. I also weirdly struggled with YEARS. The clue doesn't exactly put you in regular-old earth time (66A: Solar revolutions). I was looking for something more ... space-y. More technical. Similar struggle with ARTERY. Normal enough word, just wasn't coming to me quickly from the clue (49D: Important route). Probably the worst moment of the puzzle, which ended up being a false alarm, was when I wrote in "MOI?" for 54A: Cry from Miss Piggy while simultaneously (soft-) shouting "Noooooooo!" because "MOI" had already been used earlier in a clue (26D: "Moi! Never!"). Turns out it's not "MOI?," it's "OUI," a "cry" I do not associate with Miss Piggy at all. 


Bullets:

• 43A: One inside the Trojan horse (SPARTAN) — I teach the Aeneid every semester. The entirety of Book II is about the Trojan horse and the fall of Troy. And yet I had No Idea what this answer was supposed to be until the crosses made it undeniable. If Virgil mentions Sparta by name even once, I don't remember it. No one would ever say there are SPARTANs in the horse. "Beware Spartans bearing gifts"? No. Menelaus is in there, I think, and he's a SPARTAN king, so the clue isn't technically wrong, but it is wildly misleading. I'm not sure about the full cast of Greeks in the horse. I don't know that they are ever all named. But I know that they are not defined by their SPARTAN-ness, but by their general Greek-ness (the Trojan War involved the whole of Greece, not just Sparta). Hell, Odysseus is in that damned horse, and he's famously from Ithaka, not Sparta. You could've just said [Menelaus, for one]. That would've been accurate, and it would've made sense in context. 
• 56D: Billy who had a #1 hit with "Mony Mony" (IDOL) — I know this guy and this song well, but for some reason initially called him Billy IDLE. Surely there's the germ of a puzzle theme idea here. ["White Wedding" singer between gigs?]?

• 8D: Dish that's often fermented before eating (POI) — three letters so I just took a guess and got it right. Crosswordese, back to the rescue!!! And it crosses ENOKI! (15A: Mushroom sold in clusters). A real crosswordese feast up there. 
• 42A: Bottle Caps flavor (COLA) — the one big smiley face moment, for me. I have loved Bottle Caps since I was little. They used to come in these little green paper pouches with this freaky looking bottle cap creature on the cover, and I would rip the pouch open and pour out the Bottle Caps and then organize them by flavor and eat them in reverse hierarchy; that is, I'd eat the fruity ones first, as they were just OK (cherry, then orange, then grape) and then I'd get to the good stuff, the top-tier caps: COLA and root beer. If I were a dragon I would sleep atop not a pile of treasure, but a pile of COLA and root beer Bottle Caps. And good luck to any Hobbit who tried to get close.

That's all for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. thanks to everyone who wished my wife safe travels back from NZ. Despite mayhem in NYC (TSA shortages, I.C.E. presence, airport-closing crash at LGA), she made it through JFK and back here to central NY without a hitch.  

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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